Generally, a large amount of metal adheres to a ladle when the ladle is used over a plurality of charges, and it becomes accordingly necessary to remove the metal from the ladle. Patent literature 1 proposes a feature of transporting a ladle, in a state where no molten metal is held therein, to a ladle maintenance plant (off-line), where the metal adhering to the ladle is made to fall by using heavy machinery, and is removed from the ladle. In the ladle maintenance plant, the ladle is serviced in terms of, for instance, re-lining of refractory material, and spraying of monolithic refractory material. A ladle that has been transported to the ladle maintenance plant becomes a stand by ladle (resting ladle) until another ladle is transported to the ladle maintenance plant. The metal removed from the ladle is charged into a melting furnace, and as a result, the metal is melted and recovered as a material.
Patent literature 1: Japanese Patent Application Publication No. H08-193210